PJ Tucker: The Kyle Lowry of the Defense

0 points, 0 assists, 0 steals, 0 blocks, and 1 rebound.

That was PJ Tucker’s stat-line in a home match-up against the Orlando Magic on Monday night through 21 minutes of play, and while those numbers represent a pretty invisible night, it’s actually quite the opposite.

Tucker was not brought to Miami to score the basketball at an elite level, he was brought here to do everything else. The main element to that is the defensive side of the ball, creating a suffocating starting lineup with Kyle Lowry, Jimmy Butler, and Bam Adebayo.

And well, a lot has changed for many of the East’s best teams this season for better or worse.

Brooklyn lost Kyrie Irving due to his unwillingness to get a vaccine.

Philadelphia currently lost Ben Simmons for reasons I don’t have time to explain.

And Milwaukee lost a specific piece of their team that isn’t being brought up enough, PJ Tucker.

To win a championship, you need guys like Tucker who can play over 20 minutes without scoring a point, and still look like the most important player on the floor.

Over the first 4 games of the season, players being defended by Tucker are shooting 26% from the field on 10 of 39 shooting. Some may say that’s a small sample size, but I’d say that number won’t shift much.

There are guys like Butler who are just ball hawks in a lot of ways to hit those passing lanes at an elite level. There are guys like Adebayo who are just so physically gifted at that size to stay in front of small, shifty guards on a regular basis. But there are also guys like Tucker who are just so positionally sound that he won’t give you an inch.

That’s what has made it so hard for Kevin Durant, which by the way, difficult for KD in a game is scoring 25 points on 50% shooting, but it was very evident he was uncomfortable. It’s not that Tucker uses length against him. It’s not that he’s reaching a ton to let the referee dictate the possession. He just gets in his grill, doesn’t give up that space, and forces the Durants of the world into tough deep ball shots.

Looking back at the recent trend of front-court mates for Bam Adebayo, it’s been a pretty rocky ride in my opinion.

Starting with Meyers Leonard, they had major success throughout the first half of the regular season, giving him that stretch big who plays in drop coverage essentially was a springboard to Adebayo just letting everything show on the defensive end.

But with Coach Erik Spoelstra, that type of play-style was not going to last in the post-season.

They acquired Jae Crowder, Andre Iguodala, and Soloman Hill at the deadline, leading to an incredible Crowder bubble run at the 4, basically showcasing the correct path for that slot next to Adebayo.

After he wasn’t retained, things did not go so well for that power forward position. Moe Harkless to Kelly Olynyk to Trevor Ariza was the continued revolving door for this Heat team. And although there were moments when the Ariza insertion was clicking, there was just one main difference between him and the ultimate 4.

They needed a guy who can size up.

It was great that Ariza plugged Miami’s point of attack defense at the time, but they have that in Kyle Lowry now. At this moment, the 4 who can size up instead of size down was the missing piece.

And that is Tucker.

As he said after the game regarding this team’s defense, “I can be on KD then Bam will switch and I’m like cool, then Jimmy will switch and I’m like cool, then Kyle will switch and I’m like cool.” And that right there is the beauty of this team’s new look defense.

When that switch occurs, Tucker has no problem sizing down as well, since frankly, he’s 6 foot 6 so it’s not necessarily “sizing down.” Looking at Miami’s defense on James Harden last night, he shot 0 of 7 when Adebayo, Butler, and Tucker were defending, and that was not accidental.

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Tucker was the reason Miami took down Brooklyn on Wednesday night, and there’s a chance I could be writing that same sentence following a playoff game later in the year.

He may be making an outstanding impact on defense and on the boards, but he’s actually provided a really positive offensive role as well, which may not be the case all season. Tucker is currently shooting 39% from three on over 3 attempts a game, which is needed to take some pressure off Miami’s wing ball-handlers.

To put some of that stuff in perspective, obviously this is once again a small sample size, but Tucker has the best net rating on the team right now at 25.1. Where do the other starters land? Lowry at 19.1, Butler at 16.4, and Adebayo at 9.8.

And that’s not all due to Tucker’s 81.6 defensive rating, which is absolutely insane, but he also has the highest offensive rating among Heat starters. The sustainability of this is another conversation, but there’s no doubt that Tucker is playing at a level that I don’t think many expected.

Well, maybe Pat Riley expected it.

The last thing that must be pointed out about Tucker: he’s the Kyle Lowry of the defense.

Lowry isn’t the best offensive weapon on this team, but his job is to set up the better offensive options and put them in better positions to thrive on each possession. And that’s exactly what Tucker is doing for the defense.

Aside from the vocal aspect, since he never stops talking on the floor, he’s placing Adebayo and Butler into these weak-side defensive stances where each of them thrive, while also taking the bigger match-ups so Adebayo doesn’t have to take the beating on that end of the floor every night down low.

We knew they needed a guy to set up offense like Lowry, but I don’t think we fully recognized the need for a guy to set up defense like Tucker.

They have that now, and Tucker has been good. Really good, and it shouldn’t go unnoticed.

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